Nimrod crash families unconvinced of fleet's safety

Families of the 14 Servicemen killed in the Nimrod crash over Afghanistan have
said they were unconvinced that the aircraft was airworthy following a
meeting with ministers and RAF chiefs.

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent

11:38PM BST 10 Jul 2008

Despite assurances that the aircraft were suitable for their surveillance missions the Ministry of Defence admitted that all repairs to Nimrods would not be completed until next June, the families said.

The families united in fury against the Ministry of Defence in May after it refused to ground the fleet of 15 Nimrods despite the inquest concluding that the 37-year-old planes were not airworthy.

The inquest had heard that a design flaw led to the Nimrod exploding after a fuel leak.

Robert Dicketts, father of L/Cpl Oliver Dicketts, and three other family members said they had a two hour "full and frank discussion" with Bob Ainsworth, the Armed Forces Minister and Air Chief Marshal Sir Glen Torpy, Chief of the Air Staff.

"But we are still not satisfied that the planes are fully airworthy," said Mr Dicketts.

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"We have received assurances from the minister that measures will be in place to ensure that the aircraft will be airworthy by June 2009. We are not very happy with that and have asked them to try and speed up the process."

But Mr Ainsworth did issue an apology for upsetting the families immediately after the inquest and "fully accepted" his words were an "insensitive".

A fuel leak after midair refuelling was blamed for the crash over Kandahar in 2006. However after midair refueling was stopped the aircraft are still flying and continue to operate in Afghanistan, where the military sees them as crucial to the fight against the Taleban.

Another family member Michael Bell said none of coroner's suggestions or the Borad of Inquiry report from last December had been fully implemented.

"We who have lost our loved ones are not in agreement," he said.

A third report into the crash is being conducted by Sir Charles Hadden-Cave, QC, and Mr Dicketts insisted if anyone in the RAF was found to be negligent the minister agreed that "action will be taken against them".

The families were also told that a Nimrod was to be taken out of service and fully stripped down to see if any other airworthy points needed to be examined.

But Mr Dicketts said the remedial action was too slow.

"We want to make sure that the people flying them are as far as possible 100 per cent safe. We are not trying to ground the fleet permanently we just want them to be as safe as possible but this just seems to be taking a very long time to happen."

"We do not want another 14 families to go through what we have gone through over last two years."